


Early in 1959, the Jackson family was driving along a dirt road in Virginia, returning home, when they were forced to stop and abducted at gunpoint. Two months later, two men came across the bodies of Carroll Jackson and his one year-old daughter Janet, dumped in a remote area of Fredicksburg, Virginia. A short time later, Mildred Jackson and her five-year-old daughter Susan were found buried in a shallow grave, just outside the abandoned building that police had discovered when investigating Harold's murder.
Mildred had been brutally raped in the same room where the pornographic pictures had been found two years earlier. Since investigators were reasonably certain that the same killer had committed the murders, the media jumped on the story. Tips began to pour in, and although most of them were worthless, one pointed authorities towards Melvin Rees.

Detectives found evidence that linked Rees to the slayings of four other young women in the Maryland area as well. Rees was tried in February 1961 for the murder of Margaret Harold and in September 1961 for the murders of the Jackson family; he was convicted of both and sentenced to death. His sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in 1972, and he died in prison from heart failure in 1995.
For more: http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/predators/melvin_rees/index.html
Taken from: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/a-serial-killer-preys-upon-a-woman-out-for-a-drive [26.06.2012]
I was only 5 yrs old when the Jackson family was abducted near where I grew up. I remember the community was so frightened. Later my parents went to church with Mildred Jacksons brother. My father was called to be a juror for Rees trail in Spotsylvania but was released.
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